Finding My Latinidad Meant Leaving Behind Everything I Knew To Be True
Huff PostWhen I reflect on my childhood in Puerto Rico, I realize how the island can be like a bubble that isolates you from the rest of Latin America. We learned little about our Latinidad; the most we discussed was through Latin American novels “Doña Barbara” by Rómulo Gallegos and “Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada” by Gabriel García Márquez. “It’s a pan-ethnic category that groups multiple nationalities in a box, which can be problematic because although they share a language, some musical practices and the Catholic religion in most cases… there are many dialectal, regional differences, in some countries even resulting in rivalries over border disputes.” I felt conflicted, as many people with blended identities do. “It’s common to not feel the same affinity across all Latino cultures,” Duany says. “A may feel more distant from Central and South Americans, as opposed to their Caribbean counterparts in Cuba and Dominican Republic where linguistic and cultural characteristics are more similar to each other.” Bridging the gap, for me, felt crucial to understand my identity beyond the island I was born on and love so much.
History of this topic
My Puerto Rican Father Left Me When I Was Young, But Here’s How I’ve Reclaimed My Latinx Heritage
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